This Day: March 1

When Mohamed Elhindi left his home in Khartoum, Sudan, for college at Winona State University, his father handed him a prayer rug and said don’t miss your prayers. “You give him a promise,” Elhindi said. “And he gives you the tool.” Twenty-one years later, Elhindi prayed on that same rug at noon Thursday in his office at Minnesota State College–Southeast Technical. Elhindi, 40, prays five times a day facing east toward Mecca, Islam’s holiest city. He prays for the health of his three children. Wherever he goes, the prayer rug is the first thing he packs. He said prayer makes everything he does feel blessed. He said his father gave him a tool for life. “The day my son goes to college, that’s what I’m going to give him.”